Embassy to become a zero emission building
The German embassy building in Canberra, Australia, will be soon retrofitted in an energy efficient way. The foreign ministry has assigned Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics to develop an energy efficient retrofit concept which aims at an emission free building use. The retrofit shall be realised with high-tech products of the German building and service system industry allowing the building to be operated with zero CO2 emissions if balanced over the year.
The core measures of the energy concept are:
- a highly efficient airtight facade system without thermal bridges that reduces the heating and cooling need to a minimum and provides at the same time a high daylight quality. The energy need shall be reduced by factor 5 compared to regular new buildings in the area
- ground coupled capillary tubes in the plastry of the ceilings for a comfortable and stable indoor climate in summer and winter
- hybrid ventilation with windows that are supported a single room ventilation system in summer. In winter the single room ventilation system with a heat recovery of more than 80 % is used as ventilation feature.
- highly efficient work space luminaires with LED surface emitters
- single room control with occupancy sensors
- a visualisation of the energy consumption
- a 500 m² photovoltaic system
- 50 m² of solar tube collectors for covering the whole domestic hot water need in summer and 50 % of it in winter.
The German foreign ministry has assigned Fraunhofer-IBP to develop similar concepts for embassies in other climatic regions that may however include different technical solutions. The energy concept is described in more detail in a link on the website http://www.ibp.fhg.de/presse/presse.php?id=95
